Last week we delivered a brief overview of the 3 Key Tools for a Productive Business Mindset.  That's great for starters, but let's dig deeper into each step - one at a time. 

This week:  Affirmations
(a.k.a. - what you are saying to yourself about yourself)

Have you read about the scientists who used other scientists as their subjects, by setting up an experiment for them to run?  They told one group about the expected results of the experiment.  The other group was told to run the identical experiment, but they told them to expect completely different results.  Each group - running the exact same experiment - got data that supported the result they were told to expect.

Then there's the Pepsi Challenge:  a blind study where people said they liked Pepsi better.  So Coke hires an independent company to run challenges as well, but in their challenge they keep the label on the can so you know what you're drinking.  Suddenly people prefer Coke (an updated version of this study showed through fMRI imaging that this result occurred because the Coke brand triggered their reward centers more than Pepsi's logo prior to their taste receptors ever sensing the beverage!)

If expectation is so powerful - that is, if we humans are wired to find a way to make our expectations turn into our actual experiences - then what are you doing to create expectations to support your business?

Lately, our team has been studying Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational".  This book, similar to Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point," "Blink," and "Outliers," describes case studies that show how frequently (and predictably) human behavior is entirely different than what we would rationally expect.

It turns out that our expectations have everything to do with our "imprinting" - in other words, the thoughts that we think right before we take action; our "primer."

In one study, college students are asked to rearrange short sentences, so that they make sense.  "Play to bingo like I" becomes "I like to play bingo."  "Florida often we in vacation" becomes "We often vacation in Florida."  The experiment, it turns out, began when they left the room and began walking down the hall toward the exit.  They timed the pace of these healthy college students who had focused on "old folks words" like bingo and Florida vs. the walking pace of students who rearranged completely neutral sentences -- the "old folks" college students moved drastically slower!

These experiments were repeated with beer and food preferences, with thoughts about race and gender relations, and with self-concepts related to talent in math, science, and business.

By now, you can probably see (or maybe we're just suggesting that you can, so that you expect to see) how your thoughts and words powerfully affect your expectations (and we've already proven that what you expect is exactly what you will find a way to get - your brain is wired this way!)

Daily affirmations, like the kind touted in "Think & Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, can be read out loud in the morning as a great primer to set your expectations for the day.  They can be re-stated again right before a big meeting, or a sales presentation, or right before you sit down to be productive for the day (or if you use time-blocking the way Todd Duncan suggests, then have different affirmations to create specific types of productivity for each time block!)

Affirmation = Expectation = Results -- isn't it awesome to know that you can engineer your own results?  Just keep repeating the affirmation, taking action with the expectation of your desired outcome, and then notice it as it's arriving!

Enjoy the journey!


Got ideas of your own to strengthen affirmations? COMMENT and let our DFC community know about them!  Then proceed to Part 2 of this Series.